


Doors Yellow, Broken, Blue

by euhemeria



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Deaf Character, F/F, Getting Together, Overwatch Recall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:09:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22523797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euhemeria/pseuds/euhemeria
Summary: It feels so unfair.  She worked harder than everyone, to earn the respect that she did, was a better soldier than most, and always did everything the right way.  She would have given anything, to have joined Overwatch, was willing to sacrifice her relationship with her mother in order to serve her country.  All of that, it has to have meant something.Or,When the Recall comes, Fareeha finds her own way to serve, finds a new sense of purpose, and maybe even finds love, in the process.
Relationships: Fareeha "Pharah" Amari/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	Doors Yellow, Broken, Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [binarylazarus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarylazarus/gifts).



> hewwo... here is a Fic requested by the lovely emilia inspired by some of my other fics in which sam (fareehas father) is Deaf... she wanted to see a fic w Deaf fareeha and naturally i obliged
> 
> u will notice that the word Deaf is sometimes capitalized when fareeha thinks it, and sometimes not. basically Deaf as an identity and culture are capitalized, and ppl immersed in Deaf culture generally refer to themselves as Deaf. deafness as in a diagnosis is lowercase, and ppl not integrated into Deaf society usually refer to themselves as deaf not Deaf. its a very important distinction

Much of how a person exists in the world is determined by the body they are born into, for good or for ill. Fond as Fareeha is of philosophy, the mind-body problem has never held any weight with her—Cartesian dualism is an inherently privileged philosophical tradition, one that could matter only to people whose bodies are so imbued with hegemonic power as to be rendered invisible. For her, it has never mattered to what degree the mind and body are connected; her body has _always_ shaped her lived experience, and therefore changed the ways in which she thinks. If she were a white man, perhaps, she might think that it did not matter, her body, but she is not, and she has always been marked by it, always been very aware of the ways in which her appearance has changed the way she navigates the world.

That some people will treat her differently for her race, she has long known—she lived in Canada for part of her childhood, and she remembers what it was to learn that her actions were interpreted differently from those of her peers, knows what it is to be followed around in stores, to be viewed with distrust when boarding an airplane. In truth, that was a large part of her decision to move to Egypt, as an adult, to choose to prioritize her Egyptian identity over her Canadian heritage. Being Tlingit may be important to her father, but it is not so important to her that she would stay in a country that treats people who look like them as lesser.

She knows, too, that because she is a woman, there have been additional challenges in her life. Much has changed, for women, over the past century or so, but soldiers are still mostly men, and she is often assumed by her supposed peers to be weaker, to be more emotional, to be less capable. Eventually, she knows, she can prove all but the most stubborn of men wrong, but because of the fact that she was born one sex, and not the other, she will have to do more in order to gain the same respect as some other soldiers are granted simply for existing.

(Gender is a little more intricate than just circumstances of birth, she knows, but whether she were a woman, a man, or neither, by virtue of the fact that she was born with two x chromosomes, many will on sight assume—correctly, in her case—that she is a woman, and treat her as such, prejudices and all. Being trans would complicate that experience, but not erase it.)

Things grow even more complicated when she considers her race and her gender together, particularly when other parts of her body—her height, her musculature—come into consideration. People see her, her strength, and they think of her not as a protector, but as a threat. If she were a man, or some other race, or smaller, slighter, she might not experience such a thing, but her whole life has been marked by it. When she was a child, she struggled to play tag on the playground with other children, for they would say that she _hit_ them, were she even a fraction as rough as her peers. Now, she does what she can to minimize that sort of misinterpretation of her intent, of her character, but there is only so much she can do. She is who she is—tall, brown, and self-assured. People will see her as they see her, and she will not erase herself to make them more comfortable.

It has taken her a long time to reach that point. For all that she has always been confident in her abilities, in her potential, she struggled, for a long time, to come to terms with the fact that she cannot change how others see her, cannot make them see past her body to understand her character.

Such would be impossible; her mind has been so shaped by living in the body that she does, that there is no way to see _past_ her brownness, her womanhood, her build. That body, and the reactions of others to it, have shaped the person she has become. Although she can never accept prejudice, never accept what she has been made to feel, at the hands of others, she can accept that her experiences of such have made her the person that she is today, can love in herself that which others have hated.

Her body is her body—she could not choose it, but she can love it.

Six months ago, things seemed that simple. She was, then, at the best point in her life, in her career, captain of her squadron at Helix, serving with distinction. She was happy, she was respected, she was living in a place where her skin color, her accent, did not mark her as foreign. Things were going really, really well.

Then the explosion. The way lights danced in her eyes when her head hit the ground, and her ears rang, rang, rang as she blinked out of consciousness, and then—nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Six months ago, Fareeha thought she knew everything her body had predisposed her to, knew how her world was shaped by the circumstances of her birth, knew what it was to exist as she is. Now, she knows better. All along, there was something she could not see, a genetic predisposition she did not know about, and had it not been for that head injury, then—had it not been for that one moment of distraction, she might never have known. 

A predisposition to sensorineural deafness.

In retrospect, Fareeha should have known she had it—her father is Deaf, after all, has been since a serious ear infection in infancy—but she did not have hearing loss after her one notable childhood ear infection, and all her hearing tests in the years since came back clear. Sure, her ears rang a little too long after she fired a rocket, and yes, she had a bit of tinnitus lately, but stress can cause tinnitus, too. That was all she thought it was, stress, even though now she can see that there were other signs, looks back on the times she had trouble listening to just one person in a crowded room, because the surrounding sounds were too distracting, and sees things differently.

(And, she thinks, that could have been stress, too, could have been related more to her mental health than her physical, the trouble focusing. So, too, could have been the way she jumped when people snuck up on her—but maybe it was not hypervigilance after all. Maybe they were just better able to sneak up on her because she could no longer hear them coming.)

All the signs were there, that her hair cells were, like her fathers, prone to damage, but she did not notice them. She did not notice them and then, she got unlucky—one bad brain injury, that was all it took, and Fareeha woke up in the hospital with no more ringing in her ears. That was a relief, at first, the silence, and then she realized—it was _silent._ She could not hear ringing, anymore, that much was true, but she could hear nothing else, either, not the bustle of the busy hospital, the beeping of the machines she was hooked up to, the words that the nurse was saying to her.

A few months, and much assessment later, she knows two things: it is not that she can hear _nothing._ She can, in fact, hear some sounds, but only those that are greater than 100 dB. Six months ago, she could not have said what 100 dB meant, but now she knows, can list by heart that sounds that she still can hear—sirens, gunshots, airplanes—and she cherishes them, for their familiarity. The sounds she knew best before she became deaf are the ones that remain to her.

This, too, she knows: she is Deaf. There are things she can hear, it is true, but by practical and medical definition both, those things are negligible. Even with hearing aids, she would not be able to hear a conversation, anymore. 

At first, she did not want to believe it, thought that it might just be a temporary side effect of her head injury. Temporary loss of hearing is not unheard of, after all, and some people do regain their hearing within the first few weeks after a TBI, but for Fareeha, that did not happen. For Fareeha, the change was permanent.

Then, she was angry—her career is over, now. Deaf soldiers are not in high demand. Although she has mostly moved past that stage, mostly accepted her life, as it is now, sometimes she is angry still. It feels so _unfair._ She worked harder than everyone, to earn the respect that she did, was a better soldier than most, and always did everything the right way. She would have given anything, to have joined Overwatch, was willing to sacrifice her relationship with her mother in order to serve her country. All of that, it has to have meant something.

And it did—does—mean something. Those experiences changed her, shaped her into the woman she is now, a woman who can survive this, too, can learn to adjust to a new reality. But all that hard work does not mean that she was able to stay with Helix, or find work with any similar company; she is not useful to them now, as she is.

It frustrates her, that feeling of uselessness. She is _not_ useless of course, not helpless, can still do much for herself, even as she adjusts to civilian life and Deaf life both. Workers’ compensation ensures that she does not need to find a job, particularly not immediately, but she hates having hours and hours of spare time, hates having to find ways to fill it. With Helix, with the military, she felt her life had purpose, had meaning, and she wants to find that purpose again, in some other pursuit, wants to know that she is still helping people, still protecting them, even if she cannot do so anymore in the way that she was used to.

This could all be worse, she knows. At least she has her father—he understands, somewhat, what it is she is going through. When she needs help relearning how to do things, like visiting the bank or calling to schedule doctor’s appointments, he helps her through the process, shows her the ways in which he moves in the world. These things, she might have picked up on growing up, had she paid more attention, but her mother’s world, a soldier’s life, that was always more interesting to her, and now she is paying the price. At least she already knows sign language, from speaking to her father. Granted, she only knows ASL, because her father is Canadian, and does not know ESL, and therefore cannot sign with anyone in the Egyptian Deaf community, can only communicate with people from North America.

So she swallows her pride, and moves back in with her father, if only for a little while. She is getting better at lip-reading, is teaching herself ESL, and learning the myriad of ways in which once simple things are now made complicated, and she thinks someday, when she is ready, she will move back home, to Egypt. For now, however, she is back in Canada, again.

She should be grateful, she knows, to have a father who can support her through this, who knows what it is to be Deaf. She should be happy that he is there for her, emotionally, financially, and practically, if she needs him. And she _is_ grateful, but theirs is not a perfect arrangement.

Her father has been Deaf for as long as he can remember, and is involved in the Deaf community in ways Fareeha is not, sees his Deafness as an identity, not a disability, and does not understand, at all, what it is like for her, to have had her ability to hear erased in an instant, to have gone from a lifetime of building towards one end—a career in the military, serving her country, her community—to being unable to do so any longer. Being Deaf never prevented her father from doing anything, so far as she can tell.

(Of course, she knows that it has impacted him, his Deafness—understands better now than she ever could as a child—but if he ever chafes at the ways in which he is limited by being Deaf, he never shows it. Maybe it is too foreign to him, to imagine what her voice would sound like, or her mother’s, but surely he wishes he lived in a world which was more accessible to him, surely he wishes people did not treat him as if he were stupid, for not being able to hear, as if that meant he cannot _understand_. But he is a different sort of person than she, in all things. He never speaks, either, of the indignities he suffers as a Tlingit man living in a colonized land.)

Yet, he is right about some things—either because their experiences are similar enough that he can empathize with her, or because he knows her well by virtue of being her father. He tells her that she will come to accept it, being deaf, and in time, she may even come to appreciate certain aspects of her life, now.

When he told her that, one month after her diagnosis, she thought about yelling at him. Neither of them would have heard it, not clearly, anyway, but it might have felt nice, to tell him what a load of _bullshit_ that was. What could possibly be better, living like this? Her career was gone, she had to move back to a country that never accepted her, not in the way her mother’s home country did, and she needs her father’s help to teach her how to do simple things, again, because she is so used to using oral communication for everything.

Yet, he was not wrong.

Now, six months after becoming deaf, Fareeha has come to understand what he meant. It is a relief, to be free of the tinnitus which plagued her, in the last few years, a constant low ringing, inescapable. Nice, too, is the ability to walk down a busy street, and not worry that she will hear a sudden loud noise—a crash, a bang, a shout—and think that she is being attacked, that she needs to defend anyone. She even finds that she can focus better, no longer distracted by background noise, or side conversations. If she and her father go out to dinner, and someone’s toddler throws a fit, it does not disturb them.

None of these things makes up for what she lost, none of these things change the fact that she was robbed of her identity, overnight, lost her career as a soldier, and the satisfaction it brought her, the sense of purpose, being able to protect the innocent. In time, she knows, she will find something else which is meaningful for her, something else which makes her feel, again, like she is changing the world for the better, and like she is a part of a greater community, but she is not there, yet, needs to mourn, first, the future that was lost to her, the plans which will never come to fruition, the person she once was.

Adjusting will take time, but she _will_ adjust. This, she promises herself. 

In the meantime, she tries to keep herself busy. She reads, and she works out, and she finally learns to cook. She starts seeing a therapist—over video call, rather than in person, for lack of available ASL fluent personnel in her area—practices lipreading, and she even tries going on a date or two, with other Deaf people her father introduces her to.

She is met with mixed results. Reading goes well, and at least she feels like she is _learning_ something, when she does so, is bettering herself in some way even if she cannot better her situation. Maybe one of those books will lead her to a new interest, something she wants to pursue as a career, something she is passionate enough about that she can say she is a _botanist_ or _electrical engineer_ or _historian_ in the same way she once said she was a soldier.

Working out is more complicated. It feels good, when she does it, is a familiar, comforting routine, the repetition and the release of endorphins both good for her. Yet she has so much time to think, and nothing to distract her, no music in her ears, and she finds that all too quickly she begins to wonder what the point of this is. Why does she need to be strong, anymore? Her arms will never rescue anyone again.

At least cooking goes fine. She is not good at it, but, low as the bar is, she can at least say she is a fair sight better than her mother was. What she makes is edible, and her father seems to appreciate that, after he is done with work, dinner is already on the table, even if what she makes is not as good as what he might have prepared for himself.

To say that therapy is easy would be a lie. It is hard to be vulnerable, hard to be honest, hard to explain the many, _many_ things that are affecting her, now—her loss of her career, her sudden disability, the impact that her time as a soldier had on her psyche. Some things, she cannot talk about yet, particularly issues relating to her mother, but she thinks she will get there, hopes that she will. She has heard that therapy is meant to be difficult, and if that is so… well, then things are going quite well, by that metric, because she cries at least once a week.

(Still, she thinks often about quitting. She knows that she does not have to worry, anymore, about being discharged if it is discovered that she has any sort of mental health diagnosis; she is already discharged. But she knows, too, that her old squadmates would think her weak, if they knew about this, would look down on her, for needing it. She feels weak, too, hates crying, hates knowing that she has lost so much of her confidence, her sense of place, of self. If she stopped talking to her therapist, then she could go back to just pretending that everything is fine—but she will not do that. To do so would be to admit defeat, in a way, would be _giving up_ , and she has never quit anything in her life, has always seen everything through to the end. She wants to quit, but she will not.)

And dating… dating is fine, she supposes. The women her father introduces her to are nice enough, but it is difficult to find someone who is Deaf, gay, and also romantically compatible with herself. She has little in common with any of the women she goes on dates with, and thinks that even if she did, she does not know if she would be ready, emotionally, for a second date.

Still, it is nice to know that she is still attractive, to other people, is nice to know that despite her present struggles with self-confidence, self-worth, those women still see something in her worth pursuing.

But she does not go on any second dates, and she does not sleep with any of them, either, is scared to relearn what it is like to communicate her desires and her pleasure, now that she cannot hear. She is not ready to be naked, not in the sense of being vulnerable, is not ready to expose that insecurity to anyone, to be frustrated by yet another thing which was once so simple making itself complicated, and so she does not push herself.

She does miss being touched, though, and not in a sexual way. She misses the sort of easy physical affection she had with her squadmates, the high fives, the patting one another on the back, the joking hip bumps, all the little comfortable touches that reminded her that she was surrounded by people whom she could trust. Her father hugs her, of course, brushes her bangs out of her face, puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, but it is not the same, he and them. One person cannot replace the experience of living and working and amongst a team of people, like she did when she was in the military, in Helix, one person cannot embody the totality of it.

Helix was her world, when she was there. All her important relationships were with her fellow soldiers, whom she would have killed for, died for, and she was with them twenty-four hours a day. Her father is trying to give her space to grieve, to process, to grow, but what she wants is to be surrounded, again, like she was then, by the comfort of the familiar.

But she does not speak to most of them, the people she would have lain down her life to save, naught but a few months ago. Part of that is because of the new, obvious barrier—she cannot hear them, and they cannot sign. But they are avoiding her, too, she knows it, avoiding her emails, her texts. She understands why, of course. It would be awkward enough, had she left under other circumstances, would have been difficult to discuss their mostly classified work with her, and harder still to relate to her new life as a civilian. All of that would explain them avoiding her, but she knows, too, that there is more at play, here, that they must feel guilty, some of them, for what happened to her, must have some regrets over the fact that they did not protect her better, must blame one another, for one of them did this. Whom, she does not know, but she is aware that the source of her injury was friendly fire. One of them is responsible for the fact that she is deaf, now.

So maybe she blames them, too.

Maybe she does not want to speak to any of them, not really.

Maybe she just wants to be left alone. She has the quiet—now give her the peace.

When she sees her phone light up from across the room, then, she ignores it. If it is anyone from Helix, she does not want to speak to them, not today. She cannot. But she watches it, as the text notification lights up, once, twice, three times, four, and the fifth time the light appears she realizes—the light is from her phone _ringing_ , not someone texting her.

But who? Everyone knows that she cannot take calls, not anymore. Or, she can, because relay services exist, but she prefers not to involve a third party, and communicates exclusively over text, if at all possible. And why not? Texting is easy, is simple, is normal. She does not need to learn to do anything new, nor do the people contacting her.

No matter. Whoever this is will realize their mistake when they reach her voicemail, which is a recording of her calmly but firmly stating that she is deaf, now, and requires a text be sent instead. She cannot hear anymore, it is true, but she can still talk, can still remember what her voice sounds like, and strange as it is, to not be able to hear herself speak, she is adjusting to it, slowly but surely.

But then her phone vibrates from her pocket, and she realizes, suddenly, that the caller will not hear any such message from her, because it is not _her_ phone they are calling, but her mother’s.

That has to be an even bigger mistake than calling her. She may be newly Deaf, but her mother has been ‘dead’ for years, and as far as Fareeha knows, no one else is aware of the truth. So why would anyone try to contact her?

If this call had occurred only a few months ago, Fareeha would never have known. She kept her mother’s things in her spare bedroom for years, just in case Ana ever decided that she wanted to stop running. Tucked away in a box, Fareeha would never have seen—or heard—it ring. But here, now, in her father’s house, she is still living out of boxes, unwilling to unpack, and thereby admit this move is permanent. Two days ago, she opened a mislabeled box, when looking for her swimsuit, and instead exposed the phone, amongst many of her mother’s other things.

And now it is ringing, a dead woman’s phone in a Deaf woman’s room. It is ringing and she wonders—who could possibly be trying to call her mother now, years after her highly public death?

That Ana is not dead does not matter, here and now, because to the rest of the world, she has been gone for years, was lost on a mission in Poland, her body never recovered. No one would have any reason to call her, unless they knew that—

If someone knows Ana is alive, Fareeha needs to find out who they are. Her mother’s life could be in danger, if she is exposed. Fareeha has seen the headlines, former Overwatch agents being found dead under mysterious circumstances. If someone is hunting her mother, Ana needs to know, immediately. She is all alone, in the field, on the run with few resources, and although she can take care of herself, Fareeha knows, she would like to minimize the danger that her mother is in, if at all possible.

(Even her father does not know that her mother is alive. She wants to tell him, thinks Ana ought to have done so herself, but her mother said this was about protecting him, her silence, and so Fareeha backed down, has been keeping her mother’s life a secret, even as her father has been helping her to rebuild her own.)

So she runs across the room, before the phone can stop ringing, and picks it up. A blocked number—no way to text back. 

A split-second, a decision.

Her mother said that Sam cannot know he is alive _for his own good_ , _to protect him_. That means that whomever is searching for her is likely dangerous, likely a threat. If she answers this call, she could be exposing herself to that danger, could be inviting it to her at a time when she is still learning how best to live her life as a newly Deaf person. She is not defenseless, suddenly, but certainly she thinks she would be less likely to notice an assailant, if someone did attack her, would have less warning, less time to defend herself, if it became necessary.

But her mother _told her_. No matter what she was protecting Sam from, she told Fareeha that she was alive, and that has to mean something, right? If her father could not know because Ana did not want to see him hurt, and Fareeha can reasonably assume that her mother does not want her hurt, either, then it stands to reason that Ana believes that, whatever danger it is she is in, Fareeha can handle it.

And she can. She is not a civilian, unlike her father.

Or, she was not, until a few months ago. She _is_ a civilian now, and a disabled one.

But her mother believed she was capable, believed she could handle the knowledge that she was alive, and whatever danger comes with it, and that has to count for something. Ana has never been one to misplace her faith in other’s abilities, and so if she believed, when she wrote Fareeha, that she did not need to be shielded from whatever they are protecting Sam from—then she was right.

Fareeha can still handle whatever it is that the world throws at her. Perhaps she will have to do things differently, now, then once she did. Perhaps she is no longer suitable for a career in the military, at least according to her superiors. Perhaps she is still learning to compensate for the loss of her hearing, but her mother had faith in her, _has_ faith. And that is all Fareeha ever wanted, when she was younger, for her mother to believe in her, for her to admit that yes, Fareeha is capable, just as much as she herself is, that Fareeha is worthy of carrying on their family legacy.

And now—with something her mother actually trusted her with? 

She is not going to fuck this up.

She has to know.

If there is someone out there who is looking for her mother—someone who might want to hurt her—Fareeha has to do what she can, even now. She has to find out.

Quickly as she can, she answers the call, holds the phone to her ear, muscle memory, and speaks, clearly and calmly as possible, says what it is that she needs to say, hopefully before the other person, realizing she is not her mother, hangs up.

“I’m Deaf,” says she, “If you can, please text me.” Then, she hangs up—even if the caller has a question, she could not hear it to answer it.

This is a gamble, she knows. The caller might have misheard her, or hung up as soon as they realized she was not her mother. If they are trying to track Ana, their attention may now be turned to her. But if they know her mother is alive, if they wish her ill, then Fareeha could not sit idly by and do _nothing,_ not when her mother trusted her, with this _._

Again, the phone in her hand lights up, a reply.

_Do you sign?_

**Author's Note:**

> notes:  
> \- see above for notes on D/deaf  
> \- hair cells are NOT hairs... they are cells... that make u able to hear  
> \- some ppls hair cells are more prone to damage than others. theres a heritable genetic component to this. my mother has unilateral moderate hearing loss in one ear as the result of a childhood ear infection, for example, and her father has bilateral deafness as a result of the same, which indicates a genetic predisposition towards traumatic hearing loss. my father also has bilateral mild hearing loss as a result of exposure to loud music over a long period of time... so thats also sensorineural hearing loss as the result of damaged hair cells  
> \- tbi can cause sensorineural hearing loss esp in ppl who are prone to damaging hair cells. so fareeha was maybe she thinks losing some hearing already as a result of constant exposure to high dB noise on the job, but the brain injury resulted in sudden & drastic change in her ability to hear. bc yes, u can lose hearing for multiple reasons simultaneously  
> \- theres a difference between hearing loss and deafness, legally & diagnostically speaking, but Deaf culture doesnt always draw the same distinctions  
> \- ASL (used in canada) and ESL (used in egypt) are NOT mutually intelligible. learning one wont really help with the other. so fareeha doesnt magically know the Right sign language for where she is living at the time she becomes deaf  
> \- fareeha is still learning to accept her deafness, but she is beginning to embrace Deaf identity. this fic is absolutely NOT meant to say that being Deaf sucks. its just a big adjustment for her and she will find fulfillment and purpose again in time... with ovw... but she also will not magically be healed or "get better" bc deafness isnt something that needs to be cured, and also u cant regrow hair cells, lmao  
> \- angela shows up next chapter  
> \- also yes, fareeha talks Out Loud during this fic. she wasnt born Deaf, she learned how to speak, and she didnt suddenly forget how now that she cant hear herself anymore. its a very common misconception that deafness and muteness are always linked--they are NOT
> 
> so yeah, a lot of notes, but also theres a lot to explain when it comes to deafness LMAO. anyway im writing this for femslash february and i dont have an update schedule bc im in drs appt hell rn (lmao f) but ill update... pretty often, if i can
> 
> if u have further (fic related) questions abt deafness/Deaf culture, lmk and ill do my best to answer them. im not an md but i am a CoDA so i have that Knowledge
> 
> fic title is from harry styles' canyon moon
> 
> hope u enjoyed, things start to get gay soon
> 
> pls lmk ur thots!!!


End file.
